balloons, a cautionary tale

If you're ever on Jeopardy, and Alex Trebeck asks you "Is it possible to fit 44 helium balloons into a Volkswagen Jetta?", you can, with confidence, answer: "No."

The following is an account of how I came to know this.

Last Wednesday was our final home swim meet, and thus, Senior Night. Senior night is a chance for us to honor the graduating seniors and their parents (which, incidentally, we also do at our end of the season banquet). Each Seniors name is read off, and they are escorted by their parents across the pool deck, while everyone claps for them. Then we swim the meet, and eat cake.

I hate Senior Night with every fiber of my being. I am essentially a wedding planner for 9 kids. They all need to look perfect, have their picture taken, get flowers, and all manor of annoying things.

Three duties were entrusted to me: order the flowers, order the cake and order the balloons. The first two were easy. But the balloons. Oh, the balloons.

My first year of coaching, I learned that we always do certain things. And one of these things that we always do is get our swimmers 2 mylar balloons, and get the opposing team's seniors 2 latex balloons. So, without giving thought to numbers, I ordered balloons for our 9 seniors, and their 13 seniors.

And when I arrived at the balloon place on the afternoon of the meet, I realized that there were to be 44 balloons in total. And I had to transport these balloons 20 minutes. In my Volkswagen Jetta.

If you're having any doubts about how big 44 balloons are, trust me on this, it's a lot.

So the eternal question arose: how does one get 44 balloons into a Jetta?

I decided to open both of my passenger doors, thread the strings in between the driver and passenger seats, and wrap it around my parking break. Then I closed the door and just started shoving balloons in.

The problem with balloons, I quickly found out, is that they're like cats; you get one in, and three fly out. Cars were slowly driving past me and probably were wondering what the cuss I was doing.

At one point, I had my back seat down and balloons in my trunk, back seat, and front seat. Even with these measures, it was clear that all 44 balloons were not going to make it into my car.

And at that moment, I made the executive decision that the opposing team's seniors would no longer receive 2 balloons, but rather 1 balloon. And I began popping.

And then, in the blistering cold, I was able to fit 31 balloons and 13 balloon carcases into my Volkswagen Jetta.